The usual procedure for securing a Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance boarding group requires that all members in the booking party not only be at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but also tapped in to the park. While the boarding group process has gotten increasingly frustrating over the past few weeks due to changing park hours and ever-increasing demand for the attraction, a new glitch in the My Disney Experience app may be causing even greater issues.
Readers have contacted us about a new glitch in the My Disney Experience app that allows guests who are outside the park––even thousands of miles away––to secure a boarding group from the comfort of home. 
Various Twitter users have also taken to social media to express their concern over the glitch:
I had the same thing happen from 1,800 miles away. First time I’ve experienced that glitch; every other time it knows I’m not in the park. Guest relations will be busy today. 😬
— Mike Crummy (@Crumdawg97) February 26, 2020
CORRECT. Note the Central time on my phone screenshot. This is a common deal, people practicing at home, but it always stops you at the end since, you know, you aren’t there! Not today… go complain ASAP. I did remove our party right after, FWIW. pic.twitter.com/YA8mlhW0Cd
— Mike Crummy (@Crumdawg97) February 26, 2020
Usually, the app will know whether you’re in the park or not due to information coming from your phone, MagicBand, or ticket media.
With guests able to obtain boarding groups from miles away, they’re taking opportunities from families who have likely rope-dropped the park and planned around the boarding group process.
Hopefully this glitch is adjusted soon, or obtaining a boarding group will likely become a statistical improbability.
Have you had any success in securing a boarding group for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance? What do you think of the boarding process? Let us know in the comments.
I was able to get a BG but i also removed my entire party immediately so I wouldn’t be taking a spot from people actually in the park
I’ve only tried once, on the last day of my Tokyo Disneyland and WDW trip on Groundhog day. personally, I like the boarding groups because it gives me a chance to get to ride while if it is nothing but standby, I’d never attempt to join the queue because I can’t stand waiting hours in line in the crush of crowds.
The boarding pass is stupid. It seems like a “ploy” by Disney to get tons of people in Hollywood Studios a lot earlier/faster than they normally would and it creates early “bottlenecks” in the park that would not happen if they treated this ride with “Fast Pass” booking LIKE EVERY OTHER RIDE AT DISNEY! :(
I don’t know why they haven’t been sued for running a lottery honestly
I don’t think it’s a ploy. I think it’s just a marketing POV. Imagine waiting 4-5 hours in line only to ride the ride and it sucks. In this way it gets you up early, you can go experience other things. Can always go back to your hotel to take a nap or vehicle. It’s about putting those who get boarding groups in a little bit of a better mood.
i dont think boarding groups are not good alot people cant ride the ride . they dont have it on all there rides put in standbye lines and fastpass get rid of the boarding groups so everyone has the experence to ride or put boarding groups in all disney rides if they want this
The boarding pass process is terrible. I recently took my family of 4 to Disney and arrived a hour early to be at Hollywood Studios at 7am. A hour before the park opened to be in place to get boarding passes for RoR. At 8am I tried to get one a box on my screen turned red and what looked like an hour glass started spinning then it kicked me out and said boarding passes were unavailable. That was at 8:02am. What a terrible process. My kids were so upset to not be able to go on this ride. You spend all this money and resources to come to Disney for a vacation of a life time and then to not be able to experience all that it offers because of this very flawed process definitely leaves a sour taste in your mouth.
Yeah, we rope dropped our last day at Disney and didn’t get a boarding group… thanks!
The boarding group system is trash and needs to be done with already. It’s basically a raffle.
Wow that is a pretty big glitch! I feel bad for everyone who was at the park hours before opening!
I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but it seems to me that one of the biggest problems I’ve heard is ride break-downs. Is the hourly/daily/overnight maintenance required more comprehensive than other rides? Would better design or more testing before opening date have been able to mitigate this issue? If so, Disney should shut it down, fix it, and re-open when it’s ready to do a better job of keeping up with the demand. Until then, if the boarding group process is random and/or fair, it’s the best way. I’ll be very curious to see how it goes when we’re there later in the year.
“I’m the Dumbo.” -Jim Gaffigan
We have obtained a boarding pass and rode the ride. We did it from inside the park as designed. It was a simple process to obtain a pass, if you follow directions. We did our homework ahead of time and were ready when the app went live for the day.
Exactly !!!
best comment on here
What time did you get to the park?
So did we but did not get in. They filled by 8:01 and by the time I clicked all party members it was filled.
Boardong groups are the worst! Go back to regular queue, i hope disney removes it
We were there January 30th. Two tries and received a boarding pass. What a stupid way to do this. They really need a better alternative. Then the ride broke down twice that day. Maybe they should get all the glitches out and then have the ride open. Been going to Disney since the early 60’s and this was the first time ever having to deal with this.
We were in the park today and was able to get a boarding pass 98. We just got a notice that we are not getting on today and are being given a multiple experience fast pass for any park and any attraction including rise of the resistance.
To expand on our situation. We were to go to Magic Kingdom the next day. We had single park tickets, but they gave us a pass to get into Hollywood Studios that day so we would not have to use our last ticket. We spent half our day still trying to ride Rise of the Resistance even with a fast pass because of break downs. So we missed out on a lot at Magic Kingdom because the crowds were so high there too. We were lucky and finally did get to ride it. I do agree if you are spending the money for a Disney trip just for this ride wait until the bugs are worked out. We were lucky the people beside us were not. There were people who tried up to 5 times with fast passes.
I do not see any other way for Disney to handle the high demand for the ride. A standby line would be wrapped around Battu.
The ride is amazing though.
Went last month. Hit the park at 7am sharp and immediately reserved spot for RotR. Received Boarding Group #115, which was hard to fathom that many people submitted for the ride before us.
Luckily we were called to the ride around 5PM, and told it would be a 1 hour wait upon entry to the line. Unfortunately, after 30 mins of waiting, the ride broke down while we were at the “underground/cave” portion of the line.
Disney workers did bring around waters and some popcorn to everyone waiting, as well as did free pics with Rey, so that was nice to occupy the kids. After a 30 min delay, we were back moving, and had another 30 mins until we boarded the ride. So 1.5 hours total wait time.
Was not a perfect experience, but the ride was pretty awesome. Still have people expressing to us that they can’t believe we actually got to ride it while there, as many have not had the opportunity.
I did it this morning and got boarding group 22. But I did cancel my passs since I wasn’t there
I was onsite at 6 am and the “glitch” they told me that occurred tried to put the last party I went to Disney with in the queue, not the current one. Even though it was all correct on the app for everything but that. It cascaded downhill from there. They admitted the glitch, gave us boarding at the end of the day, then time conflicted with saber appt., ride shut down after first phase and after 45 minutes and missed appt. and dessert party we were all exhausted and charged for all of it. Disaster. Expensive disaster.
Shelly. That is what I have been stress about, we are going in April on a Monday. 3:30 droid depot and 4:30 Oga catina reservations, 6:25 fast past for millennium falcon and the dessert party. I am stress about A. Getting a boarding pass B. I have a feeling it will be same time as my reservations. I feel disney can do better, knowing are reservations times the system should book your boarding pass when you are available.
OMG. After all that, did they charge you for the light saber appointment, when you didn’t even get to build one??
At $200 a piece, that seems criminal on Disney’s part. 🤮
Shelby, you need to contact Guest Relations and explain what happened, they will refund the events you missed due to the ride failure.
We flew our 11 year old grandson to Orlando over his holiday break, so he could visit the new Star Wars experience at Hollywood Studios. We arrived at the park early and ready to join a boarding group. What we didn’t realize was that park guests could pass through the turnstiles before 7:00. I hit the join button on my app at 7:00 and our boarding group was 160. There was no way we would ever get on. We had one very disappointed grandson. ☹️
I did secure boarding passes for my group in Disneyland. We didn’t have breakfast yet so while my sister-in-law went into somewhere on main street for food for us, I waited at an outdoor table out of concern regarding cell strength. I was about 10-20 seconds late, maybe but got us a boarding group that was in the afternoon. As to what I think of this procedure, I find it unfortunate but I don’t have any answers about what would be better. The attraction broke down while we were in the rebel cave part of the queue and we waited about an hour doggedly but did get onto it by staying put.
We went the first week in February & got super lucky. We did not do the rope drop but still made it in boarding group 118… 10 minutes after park open (not a usual experience!! Don’t expect that 😬). I just went in assuming we wouldn’t get to go on it & prepared my kids for that!! That day it was guaranteed to Board Group 63. Cast members told us that it all depended on “how many times they had to restart the ride that day.” Apparently it was a good day for the ride while we were there!! We were called by 6pm & still made it out in time for Fantasmic.
The ride is beyond explanation!! So amazing!! We were SO lucky to get in it. However I feel SO bad for the average traveler that doesn’t make it in to the park in time or doesn’t have the luck of getting a pre-opening breakfast reservation!! It was totally luck that we were able to ride that day.
I wish there was a way to make this ride easier to enjoy for everyone… But no idea how they would make that work! Build a twin?? 😂😂 I can’t imagine what this process is going to be like during Spring Break!! A lot of upset visitors I’m sure!! I would not want to be a Cast Member at Hollywood Studios right now. 😂😱 The only thing I can recommend is to definitely wait to go during the slower season & do your homework!!
I was able to get on 2 different days. Got in line very early and followed the typical instructions. It was January so DHS opened at 7am. On one of the days a member of my group did not show as being in the park (even though he was). I had to remove him before trying again. I was still able to get a BG for the rest of us (4) and went to the blue customer service umbrella to fix things. They added him no problem.
Yes it was a very early day. In line by 5:45am. It was worth it. Considering the effort you put into planning one of these trips the loss of sleep was minimal. One of my goals was to get on this ride and it did not disappoint.
The boarding pass process may be flawed but it does serve a purpose. This is a very complex ride and although not particularly dangerous it does have a massive amount of moving parts. I can imagine many places along the ride that could cause it to fail. This is inevitable the more elaborate these rides get. The boarding group process allows you to avoid waiting in line while they fix a breakdown. They can stop calling boarding groups allowing those guests to continue to roam to park. Or take a nap at the resort. I was fortunate to get a BG and know I would have been extremely disappointed if I did not.
Remember Theme parks hate lines. Waiting in line means you are not spending money or having fun. So next time you want to complain about the lines remember that the reason the line is long is because the product is good. If it was not, you could walk right on and have a lame ride to forget about rather than remembering a great one.
If you can’t accept this I am happy to one less person in front of me. :)
Tried on 2/1320 at 8:05AM and also today at 8:01AM. No luck. Place was packed, nothing else was open. Nothing to do, nowhere to go for 2 hours. This is ridiculous, people should boycott.
I don’t understand why VIP tours are not eligible for rise of the resistance. How many tours of 10 people do you have in a day. Couldn’t you make 1 bordering group for VIP tours. We pay $3000-4000 and can’t ride ROR. Does that make any sense? You are going to lose VIP customers because you can’t accommodate a couple hundered guests.
While I was able to join a boarding group without any problems, I really don’t like the system. The queue seems to have plenty of room for people to wait in a standby line and the Fastpass queue is in place as well. I’ve ridden twice and went once through each line.
The whole boarding pass process is ridiculous. Should either do FP (which I do not like) or first come first ride. The boarding pass is more trouble than it is worth and people will always get around it.